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Friday, February 28, 2014

This Week in Writing

(Source: Random House)

Since
the start of February, more than 300 Anne Frank-related books have
been destroyed in libraries across Tokyo. In an announcement last
Friday (2/28), the Israeli embassy's deputy chief of mission stated:
“I think everyone understands that it's a single act that doesn't
represent Japanese people.” The embassy will donate replacements
for the books, including several copies of Anne Frank's diary. Read
more here.

At
the Oscars on Sunday night (3/2), John Ridley won his first Academy
Award, Best Adapted Screenplay, for his film “12 Years as a
Slave.” The story is an adaptation of Solomon Northup's 1853
memoir of the same name. Ridley is the second African-American
writer to win this award.

Justin
Kaplan, literary biographer and editor of Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations,
died Sunday. Kaplan received a Pulitzer Prize and two National Book
Awards for his work. Listen to a 1992 interview with Kaplan and
NPR's Terry Gross here.

Denis
Johnson's new story “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden,” was
published Monday (3/3) in the New Yorker. Read the story here,
and an interview with Johnson and the New Yorker's fiction editor
Deborah Treisman here.

On
Thursday (3/6), George Saunders's collection Tenth
of December
won The Story Prize – a $20,000 award. In a statement, judges
wrote: “This book is very funny and very sad.” Read the title
story here,
and find an interview with Saunders in Issue 27 of Hayden's
Ferry Review.

T
Magazine shared photos and interviews with writers about their
at-home work spaces and writing stations. See more here,
from Colson Whitehead, Joyce Carol Oates, and more.